Kaysen:Sanitation Fee Increase Defeat Won’t Hurt Budget

Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen says the June 10 city council vote against increasing sanitation fees by 3.4 percent won't have a major impact on the city's budget in Fiscal Year 2014.

The mayor had the fee increase included as part of his proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1. But the proposed increase was unpopular with some members of the council because the money generated would not have gone only to the sanitation department, but several other areas of city government as well. The council eventually considered the fee increase as a seperate item and voted against it.

But even though Kaysen had originally supported the increase, he says it's defeat won't have a huge overall impact going forward. Kaysen says the proposal would have generated about $215,000--about 0.39 % percent of the overall budget. Kaysen says that amount is small enough so that it can be absorbed without creating too many problems.

The mayor has said, however, that one impact will be that there will be no increase in any kind of sanitation services for city residents in the new fiscal year.